Summertime visit to Canada

Last Thursday, I flew to Toronto to visit some friends and family. The last time I was there was March, which was extremely cold, but this time, it was incredibly hot – Thursday the 21st was declared the hottest day in Toronto’s history! After spending the last 4 summers in New York, I thought to myself “how much hotter could it really be?” and decided to do the 20 minute walk from the island airport to Julia’s office to drop off my suitcase instead of getting in an air conditioned cab. Boy was that the wrong decision – by the time I got to her office, my head was pounding from the heat. It was about 50 degrees Celsius at that point (I think about 120 F) and I decided to drink some water and have a tour of her office before I went outside again.

My next stop was Sarah & Stephen’s house. After stepping out of the air conditioned subway, I picked us up some popsicles and we all sat in their living room – their only room with air conditioning. It was actually really nice to just sit and talk with them for hours, while eating watermelon, popsicles, and gatorade.

That evening, my Toronto ladies got together and tried out Frank‘s Summerlicious Menu at the Art Gallery of Ontario. Luckily, it wasn’t very busy so we ate and ate and then hung around for a while after, catching up. It’s always so nice to see them!

Friday morning, I met Eli for breakfast, USS for a pre-lunch drink (non-alcoholic, don’t worry!), and then Nick flew in so we could celebrate our first wedding anniversary together.

We both agreed it was very suitable that we spend our anniversary in Toronto since we initially divided our time between the two cities so well. We spent our day eating lunch at Fresh, walking around, and then went to Enoteca Sociale for a real Italian dinner full of food and prosecco. Nick also ate his entire 24 oz steak just to show our waiter he could do it!

Saturday morning, we met up with my brother Ryan & his wife Suzanne at their new condo and we all headed to my parents’ cottage in Fenelon Falls.

My sister, her two kids, and my grandparents were already there, so it was a full house of 11 people in total. It was so good to see everyone though.

We sat outside, talking and snacking

Went for boat rides

Swam in the river

And each night we had a campfire. I realized hadn’t had a roasted marshmallow in years!

We headed home on Monday morning, or at least tried to – our flight suffered some horrible delays from weather in Newark among other things – but let’s not talk about that because I want to remember the visit for the great time it was.

See you again soon, Canada!